A Day In the Life of Alliance Marine Harris
by Alex Mcpherson
Summary: Mindoir, Elysium, Akuze, Torfan. Those were Easy. A day in the life of Marine Sniper Harris is a tough one, or so he tells Shepard.
1. Bullets From Afar

**Eden Prime**

Usually when one is the victim of a sniper round, there's a spatter of blood, large concussive force, and you drop from shock, and die from either bleeding out or from the trauma of the wound.

However, when one is the victim of a Xander Harris special, they're splatter all over the place in a shower of varren meat, geth circruits or whatever makes up the super-evil being he's firing at.

To see the results without knowing that he's even there? Commander Shepard was livid upon learning about it.

She ducked down into cover, and readied her M7 Avenger rifle for another burst. A blink of her helmet's heads up display indicated it had cooled down now. She moved out, and took aim-

CRACK-BOOM!

She dove back into cover, and pulled her helmet off, pain from the ringing of her ears. Then she noticed the bits of geth parts landing nearby.

Cr-Cr-B-BOOM!

She clutched her ears in pain now, and swore at what she recognised. explosive rounds fired at hyper-velocities.  
Bits of a bigger geth, and another immediately land around the area. There are no more Geth, and she pulls her hands away, and note a little blood and that she can't hear a sodding thing.

-break-

Xander winced. "Shit." He knew the weapon was loud - and the explosions louder. it wasn't so bad for him, he was well used to them.

He sighed and packed up, ready for a long treck to where the lone soldier was. his trio of sniper rifles that he'd duct-taped together and adjusted so that at a set range he could fire all three with precision from one scope... well. He'd done that because of that damn armeture from earlier in the day, and each one took five seconds to cool down.  
He readied his assault rifle, and made his way, his long 2-mile way over.

-break-

**Therum**

Xander leaned out of the hanger, the only thing stopping him from falling out was the harness tied to the roof. He readied his sniper rifle, and Joker gave him his window.

CRACK!

Quickly, but still taking a while due to distance, the half-inch-diameter and 6-inch internally-machined 'Mini-nuke' extreme-explosive rocket-propelled and mass-effect guided "Anti-ship" round traveled the five miles and hit on target.

-break-

Joker warned them, and they rushed into the MAKO, where the it would protect them from the shockwave.

even so, they still heared it.

CRA-BOOM!

Wrex laughed as the squad held on, and through the shockwave of the round that exploded with half the force of a hydrogen atomic bomb, (literally) two of the squad prayed to gods to survive while Wrex and Shepard cheered.

Scant seconds later, the MAKO was rocked again by the debris of a heavy Armeture striking around and on the MAKO.

-break-

**Noveria**

Xander almost whined that he didn't get to do anything this time.

-break-

**Feros**

Xander climbed down the side of a building half a mile from where the Normandy was, and saw through a gap some strange creature.

Half an hour later, and he got the order.

This time, he would need to swap out the hyper-rail mass driver for a slower, larger-payload one. He did, and switched out the ammo machining program from high-explosive to one that would deal with a plant in no time. Thanks to the idea from a James Bond film from long ago, about a 'Torpedo' that drilled into a navy ship of all things, he took aim and fired a bullet that was more drill than bullet.

It struck the plant, and started to burrow it's way through into the heart of it, and when he found the brain, he grinned and hit detonate.

-break-

**Virmire**

"YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?" Xander screamed, as again he was perched on the lip of the hanger doors, this time with four of his 'xander special' high-explosive sniper rifles all within a turret rig, and each had a coolant feed for sustained fire, and ammo material feed so it wouldn't run out - with thigns going the way they were he'd have used a full block in each one within a minute.

CR-CR-Cr-Cr-CRACK!

He adjusted aim, for one of the Anti-Air turrets that was slowly turning toward the normandy, and he fired two bursts.

CR-CR-CR-CR-CR-CR-CR-CRACK! CR-CR-CR-CR-CR-CR-CR-CRACK!

-break-

Saren blinked and wondered why he coulnd't hear anything. He looked up, and oh yeah, some maniac had fired 16 god-damn high explosive sniper rounds into the Defensive turrets, and destroyed them. How, he didn't know.

-break-

Shepard smirked as Kaidan let down the biotic barrier, now that Xander's "Covering fire" was over.

-break-

Xander looked around the team. Liara was looking nervous as ever, Wrex was, wrex. Garrus still seemed like he had a stick up his ass. Tali seemed like she had a crush on him, given his ingenuity for using what was available to accomplish things thought impossible. Ashley was exasperated at his latest invention's destructive demonstration. and Kaidan was glad he hadn't had to follow the original plan to destroy the Defenses.

-break-

**Ilos**

Xander looked at the door, shrugged, and said, "I can blow it open."

Shepard didn't have time to argue the point, and had a feeling that finding another way would have taken a lot longer than they had anyway.

They got into the mako, while Kaidan stuck with Xander to protect him from the shockwave.

Xander and Kaidan moved behind the MAKO, and Xander got down on his belly, to aim at the door from beneath the MAKO. He lined up his sniper rifle at a structural weakpoint, and fired.

CRA-BOOM!

With a grin, the pair got into the MAKO, a tight fit with Shepard and Liara.

-break-

**Citadel**

Xander slowly made his way to a point on the external hull of the Citadel Tower that would give him a clean shot at Sovereign.

As it fired at one of the ships, he fired too.

THUD, it sounded like as the rifle bucked into his shoulder but the rest of the noise usually made was absent, thanks to no atmosphere.

He grunted, and missed the sound of the Boom as the round struck between two segments on Sovereign's "main body" and exploded with the force of an actual Atomic bomb. They sure made them smaller, these days. The ship then seemed to go dead. Everyone looked at him, and he radio'd over his idea about how a reaper might - 'MIGHT' not have had the power generation to fire weapons and maintain kinetic barriers.

-break-


	2. Reaper What You Sow

**Freedom's Progress**

"Hey Ashley, look at this." Xander spoke to his partner-in-crime. well, not technically, as he was a Spectre of two-years now, the second Human spectre (so close on the heals of the first one) and Ashley was the Alliance soldier he'd gotten permanently assigned to him as 'Support'. People assumed they were a couple. Oddly, when people saw him with Tali, they thought that about them too. (The Truth is much, much stranger or not, depending on your point of view).

Ashley looked at the evidence they just found.

"Is... Is that Shepard?"

"Yeah." He spoke with a sigh.

"She's... She's alive?"

"Dont tear up on me until after the mission, Ash." Xander spoke softly. "Come on, you can wonder about why she's with people wearing Cerberus symbols later."

-break-

**Omega**

Xander smiled and hugged his friend. "Aria, been a while."

"Indeed. Last we met, you were intent on becoming a Sniper." She looked at him with amusement. "Now you're a spectre."

"Yeah. I mean, I used a sniper round, and killed Sovereign. Go figure."

"Always modest." She said with an eyeroll. "Now, I take it you're here because of Shepard?"

"Yup. So, what's she up to?"

"Either rescuing Garrus or recruiting Mordin. That new ship of hers is... cerberus though." She passed a datapad. "Everything I've got on the ship, crew, situation..."

"Thanks."

-break-

**Unknown**

"Hey Faith."

Jack Zero looked up, and all of a sudden she looked different, but the same. her stance was changed. "Xander?"

"So. Cerberus wants to recruit you for a mission, only not into their group."

"Those assholes? P-lease."

"SHepard."

Faith was stock still, and asked, "She Cerberus now?"

"No. They presented a problem that she can fix, that is in galactic interest, not cerberus in particular."

Xander and Jack shared looks, before Jack sighed and nodded, "They don't know that I'm not in prison. Do I really have to go and..."

"Yeah. Hey, I'm the one that secretly broke you out."

-break-

**Horizon**

Xander smiled at the scent in the wind. "Ah. I love the smell of burnt corpse in the evening."

"Gross." Shepard commented, as she kicked the dead body of a collector - one of many that her friend from the Normandy had killed.

"Yep. So, Ashley's not happy, you know."

"I know."

"Kaidan's pissed off."

"... Whatever gave you that idea." Shepard said flatly. "And you?"

"Oh, you know, usual." He held a serious look, for all of ten seconds, then smiled like a kid, "When do I get to play with your new big shiny guns? I heard you got a THANIX cannon. Can you say, Shweet?"

-break-

**Normandy**

"Welcome back Commander Harris." EDI spoke. Xander grunted a little, in pain from his second away mission as a member of the SR-2 crew, a stop-over on the way to Illium.

"Are you alright?" She asked in concern.

"I'll be fine, just need a trip to the Medbay. Then my hot bod will be without a scratch in no time."

"God forbid."

"What was that?" Xander asked, knowing the sarcasm of EDI quite well already.

"Get to bed." Edi correctly lamely. Still not good at those jokes.

Xander finished trekking to the medbay, the conversation having taken place throughout Deck 2, so people had heard a bit and gave themselves looks. EDI was... joking?

-break-

**Justicar a day at the office. Er... Illium. Hmm.**

Samara looked at him with recognition, and turned to Shepard. "You travel with interesting comrades, Shepard."

"Xander, interesting?" Shepard joked.

"Indeed. He still looks the same as when I first met him twenty years ago."

Shepard nodded. Xander frowned at that, actually.

"You know his secret?"

"Yep."

"You do?" Xander had to ask.

"Of course I do. You told me. Right? You did tell me and I didn't just have a dream about you telling me and there was those marshmellows and gramma Willow sent me a message which I was reading when you came in to tell me and all that and then I fainted and when I woke you were gone but that message was still on my system and-"

"Woah." Xander blinked. "Gramma Willow?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

-break-

**Reaper Ship**

"It wasn't my fault!"

They snorted in disbelief as they ran.

"Come on, how was I supposed to know that one shot would kill it?"

Shepard just managed to give him a five-second long pointed look of reminder as she ran.

"Oh. Right."

-break-

**Normandy**

"This one hums 'music' in Geth language." Legion said with a wave of a hand to Xander, who blinked.

"I do?"

"What is this song, 'all along the watchtower' about?"

"No idea. I just like it."

"Indeed. It has a curious meaning in each verse..."

-break-

Xander sighed in sadness as they sped away from the geth station.

"Don't worry Xand," Faith- Er, Jack started with a grin, "You'll help me blow up Pragia, right?"

"Yeah." He smiled in happiness.

-break-

"That. Was. Awesome." Jack said as she and Xander stepped out of the shuttle. Shepard just shook her head at them, while Miranda and Jacob looked at them curious - Jack did not like hanging out with anyone, this was fact accepted by the crew. The only exception being she seemed tolerant of Shepard. But, and heres what was screwing with their minds, ever since horizon, she actually left her little hole on occasion, to chat to Spectre Xander Harris. But not as 'Spectre Harris', but as just 'Xand', as Jack was oft to call her. She seemed to find amusement whenver he would tell someone to 'have faith'. Most curious.

-break-

Xander blinked as he idly rubbed at his singed eyebrows.

"What the... were you using mini-nuke rounds again?" Shepard half-shouted as she rubbed at her own injuries.

"No, I just got a head-shot on that mech-"

"Oh dear." Garrus commented. "You do know that that causes their fusion cores to overload?" He made it sound like it was a no-no for close-combat with those heavy mechs. Unfortunately, he seemed not to remember who he was talking to until he saw the look of glee on Xander's face.

-break-

Shepard looked between the cerberus scientist just cold-clocked by Xander, and Xander.

"Angry much?"

"... don't." Xander just gave her a serious look. One that stayed. He turned away and headed down for where they would find the scientists' younger brother.

Shepard looked to Jack, and Jack sighed and said, "Look, you're the only one who knows anything about Xander, aside from me, right? and you know me and him are similar... well Xander... he, uh... kinda tried to have a family, only he lost his wife after she gave birth. and his son... well, lets just say thats part what kept him out of the fight until shanxi." Jack sighed, she hated emotional shit like that, and so pressed onward after Xander, hoping Shepard wouldn't push for info.

-break-

**Omega 4 relay destination point**

Xander in full suit, checked the straps on himself, and smiled at the view.

Almost literally straddling the guns, he used a holographic control panel to manipulate them and aim.

"fire!" Came the command from Joker.

THOOOOOOOM.

Xander had tears in his eyes, it was so beautiful...

-break-

He looked at the monster, and with a shrug, pulled out the one weapon Shepard never ever wanted him to handle. She'd dropper hers though without realising, and it just looks so shiny.

He charged it to full power, and aware that as soon as it did hit full power it would fire, he got it aimed just...

right... on the eye...

THungngl.

He blinked. It... didn't fire?

He tried again, and this time as it started to charge, there was an ominous humm that actually sounded like it was saying...

"Ominous hummmmmmmm."

THOOOOM!

He thought it couldn't be more beautiful than the thanix cannons but... his eyes teared up.

He turned to Shepard who was shocked.

"Can I have one of my own, please?"

She sighed, and commented, "No more ovalquik for you."


End file.
